Citizen Will

As I wrote recently, it’s been quite interesting to see how folks respond to the challenge of campaigning.

I know it’s not conventional to salute your campaign opponents – which explains why the incumbents don’t mention my role in hiring an economic development officer, green fleets, re-balancing the size of affordable housing on Lot #5, etc. – but, as I imagine most folks have figured out, I’m not big on following the status quo, especially when it means passing up an opportunity to improve our community.

Which brings me back to Penny’s and Matt’s well-deserved recognition and endorsement by the Daily Tar Heel.

I’ve gotten to know these folks and they’re both the real deal. They’re not running to be the next Mayor or position themselves to run for State office – ego building is just not part of their portfolio.

Instead, Penny and Matt are quite concerned about our community and have presented solid, pragmatic proposals for addressing some of the tasks left undone these many years.

This year, they also were the only two folks, other than myself, willing to engage in a real debate – an exploration if you will – of the ways we could realistically address many of the challenges still before us. As Matt notes, the incumbent monologue might have been an effective campaign tool but it was a miserable strategy for educating and engaging the wider community.

Here’s what the DTH had to say about Penny:
(more…)

Local teen alcohol awareness activist Dale Pratt-Wilson asks if the $225,000 spent managing Downtown’s Halloween booze-fest is worth it:

Wow…What an awesome use of my tax dollars! I am especially pleased with having to pay for twenty-one Orange County EMS calls related to drunkenness.

It would be interesting to see a cost analysis of what the town earned in tax revenue and fees etc. vs. funds expended for manpower both law enforcement and civilian and finally the crews needed to clean up the mess.

As the night rolls on and families have gone home, this financial extravaganza amounts to nothing more than a drunk-fest. If you don’t believe me, ask any of the 385 officers being paid to work this gig.

Why are we bank-rolling this party? Help me and the other citizens to understand the thinking behind this decision.

I’ve disagreed with some of Dale’s tactics but she’s got an excellent question here, does the investment merit the return?

When I first moved to Greenville to attend ECU, Halloween was “banned” Downtown. In the mid-’70’s, there had been a tear-gassing police riot that shutdown the festivities and, in 1980, the town was still in no mood for downtown parties.

The constitutionality of the town’s Halloween crackdown was questionable but the outcome was quite effective – step off the sidewalk, congregate or wear a mask and get arrested.

Eventually Halloween returned to downtown Greenville and by the time I graduated folks were puking their guts up in downtown alleys, getting their heads bashed in during drunken brawls and damaging private property for blocks around. Adding to the volatile mix – tensions from out-of-town visitors like Jacksonville’s and Fayetteville’s young recruits, gangs out of Raleigh and university students from State, UNC-CH and UNC-W – which often resulted in some rather nasty incidents.

I’m not sure the best course of action to take in managing our Halloween but letting it continue to escalate in cost and taking on a riskier profile with no clear return to the citizenry doesn’t make sense.

Time for a community confab to sort out what we value most from this Chapel Hill tradition and preserve those elements we, as a community, find most appealing.

I believe there’s usually a better way to do almost anything and, as a business person, well understand the value of customer complaints as a tool for driving improvement.

Complaints are like canaries in the coal mine alerting you to developing negative conditions – many organizations, though, would rather kill the canary than respond to their plaint.

In 2005, then Town Manager Cal Horton, made sure that the candidates for office were tied into Council’s information stream. This included citizen mail, status reports, early agenda items and advisory board work product.

After the 2005 election, I asked Council to make this information available to the wider public. In spite of professing an interest in transparent governance, the majority of Council decided not to expose our residents to citizen complaints or alert folks early to developing policy problems.

The Chapel Hill Police Department reports that last night’s Halloween bash, attended by 82,000 folks, went fairly well – at least based on the numbers:

Simple Affray(4),Assault on a Female (1),Simple Assault(2),Drunk and Disruptive(3),Assault on an EMS(1),Disorderly Conduct(1),Assault on an LEO(2),Resist and Delay(3),Failure to Disperse(1).

Orange County Emergency Medical Services responded to thirty-one calls and eight people were transported to UNC Hospitals. Twenty-one of the calls were related to intoxication.

Sounds good but not everyone was happy about our Town’s effectiveness:

The control on our street, NORTH STREET off Hillsborough tonight was ridiculous! By 10PM, the street was filled with cars that didn’t belong here. I spoke with the “traffic control” people and they said “…nobody told us anything…”. They let anyone down the street to park who asked them to, they had no cones until they found some up near Rosemary Street, and had no clue what they were supposed to do. This is the most ridiculous traffic control during Halloween I have ever seen. Someone at the Town needs to take control of this Halloween disaster and protect the neighborhoods from the thousands who invade the Town each year.

There is no reason to spend this much tax money on an event and NOT
protect the people who live here!

Now, we could look at this an isolated complaint, be comfortable with the overall numbers and not investigate any further OR we could look at this as an opportunity to do better next year.